


Twice Gentle

by LookingForOctober



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-22
Updated: 2009-07-22
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForOctober/pseuds/LookingForOctober
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Excerpts from the private diaries of Susan Pevensie and Susan the Gentle of Narnia, in no particular order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> This was written years ago, and is as complete as it ever will be. Just Susan character study.

25 January 1956

My birthday. I'm twenty eight years old today. Jeanne took me to lunch and 

No, honestly, never mind all that. I'm older than I've ever been before, and I know that sounds absurd but I've been thinking about ...

_Narnia_

(Resisting the impulse to write that as small as possible, may have gone overboard? Don't laugh, Susan. Don't cry.)

If it wasn't real, why is the dream so clear in my mind? Not the big things; there's still something impossibly silly about Kings and Queens and treaties with the dwarfs and battles and feasts and magic horns. They called me Susan of the Horn, how absurd!

But sometimes when I'm restless, I put on my coat and go for a walk, and as often as not I give in and take the tube across London to the tower. I walk around and around, and I think about Cair Paravel the last time I was there, when it was in ruins. That's time for you, always taking something away.

I'm invisible in the crowd, leaning against the railing like a tourist, but if I look at the ancient stones and close my eyes half way so everything's blurry, I can almost smell the ocean. The salt smell of the ocean always pervaded Cair Paravel, from the tip of the tallest tower to the lowest balcony overlooking the sea, the one with the best view of sunrise. Oceans on Earth never quite match the familiar smell of the Narnian sea, there's always something not quite right about the smell.

If it wasn't real, where do the quiet memories come from? I can pretend we made up Kings and Queens, but who could make up the scent of an alien sea? And yet

But I was talking about being older, wasn't I? I remember one holiday, after the first time but before the second -- it was Peter and I, telling each other stories and pretending, like children do. It was I who wanted to know, but Peter who remembered the anniversaries and then days and weeks, and who did the maths to figure out how old we were to the day, the day we returned from Narnia.

"Fair lady, you appear remarkably young for twenty eight," Peter said, and we both laughed. 

It was a year later, of course, so I was twenty seven when we came back. And now I'm twenty eight and my double life is gone. From now on, everything is the first time.

I'm not sure I like that.

I wish I could tell them I miss remembering Narnia, after all these years. But I just bet they would call me self centered; I miss remembering myself. 

(All right, enough. Don't wallow, Susan.)

 

28 August 1945

I could kill Peter. At least then he'd stay out of my social life. It's not as if my friends are his business anyway. No, not even the ones that happen to be male and happen to think I'm pretty and aren't too shy to say something about it. Especially the ones that are so sweet about it, and have such beautiful eyes. 

I don't mind Edmund and Lucy laughing -- I don't! They're still children. But Peter! Just because David wanted to sit by me at the picnic and talk about poetry (and cricket, but I enjoyed the poetry more). He was perfectly polite. Peter had no call to send him off on a wild goose chase the moment my back was turned for a few seconds. I felt so bad when he came back! He kept joking about it, really quite modest and polite, I don't know what more they want! Every time he said something Ed would smirk like a beast and Peter looked grave and Lucy laughed and changed the subject, if I didn't do it first.

And even that's not the worst of it. I tried to talk to him tonight. Peter, I mean. I was perfectly reasonable. I told him that I liked David quite a lot, and didn't appreciate him encouraging the others to smirk and laugh and play silly jokes, and that I thought it was beneath him to play such infantile jokes himself.

He was looking over a book for next term, with only the little light over the desk on, and when he turned his face was in the shadow and I would have sworn he was older. It was the way he was balanced, solid in his chair like nothing would ever move him, and his shoulders are starting to fill out even without all the sword practice this time. 

"I wouldn't, Susan. It's not a good match," he said, just like he always used to say in Narnia whenever some princeling came calling on Lucy or I. And he was always right -- politically.

"I'm not making a match," I said. "I'm--"

"Flirting," Peter said. You'd think there was something wrong with a bit of harmless flirting, the way he said it.

"I am not," I said indignantly. (It's a lie! I think I was. I hope I was. But I wasn't flirting in that dreadful tone.)

He looked at me. "I'm seventeen," I said, trying to match his gravity. He made me feel gawky, but I know how to be a queen too. I stood still, reaching for it. "It doesn't mean anything if I smile at someone, it's just fun," I said.

"Then find someone who's less of a bore, and maybe your family won't have to get rid of him. It's purely self preservation, you know, Su."

"There's nothing wrong with David," I said indignantly. I leaned forward with some mad idea of persuading him to understand. I tried to catch his gaze; he had to understand. "Peter, he's dreamy. I want him to like me."

"You never did have an ounce of sense when it came to men," Peter said indulgently.

I recoiled. You try to tell the truth...did he used to be easier to talk to? He's impossible now. "Unfair!" I said. "Untrue! And unimportant. Do what you want, don't expect me to pay any heed to you anymore. You've forfeited your right. You don't seem to realise, this is England."

"Don't you realise? There's not as much difference as you think," Peter said quietly. 

"What nonsense," I said. "Anyone can see there's all the difference in the world."

He shook his head. "Susan?"

He said it so gently I leaned in toward him again, expecting him to give in to the obvious way of thinking. I should have known better. "Peter?"

"You'd better make sure your David doesn't get the wrong idea," he said.

"Oooo, Peter!" I said, losing the dignity of the queen for good. Not eloquent, but certainly expressive. I think tossed my hair as I said, "Just because you don't know how to interact, in England, doesn't mean I'm such an idiot. I've talked about it with my friends, and with Mother too, you know. Maybe you should, too."

"I just want you to think about what you're doing," Peter said, completely ignoring the part he didn't want to hear.

"I do," I said, too quickly. I wasn't going to get anywhere like this, I needed dignity.

"Not enough," he said quietly.

"Peter. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm wrong," I said. 

"It doesn't mean you're right," he said, and I could see the whole conversation was worse than useless. 

"Right," I said, putting all the exasperation I felt into the word. I turned and left, briskly but not too quickly. It was a measured decision, and I was behaving exactly as I should. I was in the right on this. 

He called after me, but I looked back and he hadn't even got up to come after me. He doesn't think I'm important enough. Thinks I'll get over it. Come round to his way of thinking. I always do. Well, this time I won't! I'm still angry, whenever I think about it. 

The tone. The assumptions.

Honestly, they're all such children. Especially Peter.

 

I put pen to paper tonight with the determination not to write about the virtues of Rabadash, clear though they are to me. I have spent too much paper and too much ink in that same task before this night, and although he is charming and although he is brave, and as pleasing as any who have come courting, tonight I must clear my mind and set down my thoughts without excuse or bias, for tomorrow Prince Rabadash departs and my brother the High King will ask for these very thoughts, and I would not be tardy in the telling.

Therefore I shall begin without delay, taking the preceding pages as given, and acknowledging and even glorying in the plain fact that I find him attractive -- and more, he is brave and skilled and well mannered, passionate in love and in war, and best of all, when he smiles at me I must smile back. Indeed, I think I could love him, were I given the chance, and am perhaps fair on the path toward that already.

And that is perhaps enough for the woman who would marry the man, but a queen must think further. It is difficult for a ruling queen to marry, and leave her home and her responsibilities to take up a new life in a foreign land. Therefore let me write the dilemma and consider.

Item the first: Calormen is a large land, with people and customs that differ greatly from those of the north. Regardless of my joy as woman and wife, were I to attach my fate to that land, would the land and the way of life bring me joy?

Item the second: I fear me that my siblings and fellow rulers do not like Prince Rabadash as I do, and I would be grieved to have anything come between us four.

Item the third: Can I give up being a ruling queen to become a wife? For make no mistake, Prince Rabadash is not looking for a co-ruler, that much is clear. A wife, a help-mate, a mother for his children -- it is not a less role than that of ruler, but it is a different role, and I fear me I would see it as a diminishment.

Truth to tell, it is but a woman's dilemma writ large. To marry is to tie one's destiny to one man, for better or for worse, and allow him to tie his destiny to yours. Two become one, and it must indeed be a change for you both, but I do not think I exaggerate to say that it must be the larger change for me. And I am afraid.

Yes, afraid! Afraid to give up the joy that I have, the fellowship of my siblings, the easy manner in which we rule together in amity, and exchange it for the closer bond of a spouse. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of the changes that must come to my life. Afraid to change, and I do not think it possible that I would not change, with change surrounding me.

And yet, I long for those very changes. A ruling queen is a barren role, and choose what I may, the simple truth is that I and my siblings cannot stay the same forever. Yes, presently the balance holds, but for how long? Were Peter to marry...or Edmund, or Lucy? What then?

And yet they -- even Lucy, especially Lucy -- would not leave Narnia to marry. Our family would grow, not sunder, were any of them to choose a spouse, and Cair Paravel would ring to the laughter of their children. 

Would I let while mine grow to adulthood far away from Narnia? Could I bear it?

And yet, why not? Did we not ourselves spend our first years in a different world? I am strong, and can learn to love the land I find myself in, and surely it is not a hardship to marry a prince, even the prince of a foreign land. Nor is it hardship to marry a man such as Prince Rabadash has proved himself on this visit. Indeed, everything in me cries out to accept him, and let the rest settle itself, as surely it would. 

I am no coward, to shrink from happiness for fear of the unknown.

There, I have reached the very nub of the decision, and as I expected, in the writing of it my choice comes clear. I cannot decide against him, not for fear, not for doubt. And so I must accept the prince his invitation and see what adventure comes of it, and so I shall say when Peter asks. 

Yes, it is the time for hope, and not the time for commitment, neither for nor against. It is not a time for decisions, however much I long to throw myself one way or another. If I have learned only one thing as ruling queen, it is this: a hasty decision oft leads to regret.

And now conscientiously to bed, and may sweet dreams of my prince comfort me in my prudence.


End file.
